


Graduation

by OverWroughtThought



Category: Acquisitions Inc., Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), The "C" Team
Genre: Excitation, Graduation, Ruination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 08:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13430499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverWroughtThought/pseuds/OverWroughtThought
Summary: There comes a time when every child must choose the word that will define the rest of their lives.  This was Sebastian's day.  Would he choose wisely, or make a mistake that would lead to utter humiliation?





	Graduation

It was his naming day.  He squirmed with anticipation, not quite knowing what to do with his feet, tail flicking back and forth on the ground.   The floor of the antechamber was smooth, worn down by centuries of equally nervous feet taking these same steps to adulthood.  
  
It was dark in the smaller tunnels, but his vision could still make out the others here with him.  They were all dealing with the tension differently.  One chewed on cracked lips.  Another mouthed different words, silently testing them.  A third was hanging from the ceiling, perfectly still.  One licked their eyeball, then the other, then the first again.  They all had their ways of coping with the wait.  He tried not to judge.  Their choices today would determine the tenor of their lives.  Perhaps even of history.  It was worth being nervous about.  
  
There.  The ritual hiss.  Their signal.  He stepped out into the amphitheater at the head of the line.  The dais at the center, bathed in one bright beam of light, captured his attention.  He was aware that the rest of the room was crowded with people, but he could not tear his eyes away from that central point to squint into the shadows.  His parents were there somewhere, in one of those many seats.  More than just his village gathered here.  Every year, a pilgrimage was made to this sacred place, to witness children choose names and become a larger part of the world.   Every seat was filled, crowding the massive room, each of them contributing their voice to the sound that had summoned him.  He moved towards the dais at the center and the ritual hiss became a thunder of feet stomping and tails whipping through the air.  The force of it vibrated the very earth.  It was all he could do to put one leg in front of the other, under the weight of so many eyes.  
  
He reached the central dais.  The Regent and the Namer stood upon it, regal and solemn, but their colors spoke of welcome and joy as well.  The Regent had chosen to display predominantly blue hues, a royal and dangerous color.  The saturation was impossible to overlook.  It spoke of authority, a bright warning to those that might cross her.  The Namer chose a multitude of pigments.  She was a little of everything.  Flexible, she could stand out or disappear as she chose.  In the shadows to the side of the dais were two curious people he had never seen before.  Next to the beam of light on the center of the dais, it was hard to make out their coloration in the gloom, even with dark vision.  A sour yellow on one and a rust hue on the other?  He was about to look at them closer, but at that moment the Regent stepped forward and the room quieted.  
  
"Behoove.  _Nom de Plume_ ,"  The slant of the Regent's rhyme reinforced her authority.  This was one who could _in_ fluence her em _pha_ sis.  Her tail flicked in a gesture that included all the children at the base of the dais.  "Choose true," the Regent advised them.  Then she stepped back, giving the floor to The Namer.    
  
The Namer continued where the Regent had left off.  "Carefully.  Thoughtfully," she cautioned.  Her coloration shifted slightly, dulled, indicating the word she would now speak took on the negative form, an unspoken, "Not," before each word that any with eyes to see could read.  "Brashly.  Unwisely."  Her tail pointed to the two figures standing in the shadows next to the dais and her tone became cold.  Her colors brightened, taking on a dangerous edge.  "Expediently!"  She snapped.  
  
The odd couple moved forward into the light.  One was bile yellow, skin flaking and faded with age.  Her expression was irate.  Her tail wrapped around the front leg of a miserable figure that she pulled forward.  He dragged his stomach on the ground, tail limp behind him, every step forward reluctant.  His rust coloration looked blotched and sickly.  The two shared similar patterning. It was possible they were related.  
  
"Once!  Dunce!" The irate elder, perhaps his grandmother, snapped at the unhappy man.  
  
"Orange," he pronounced, his skin flaring into bright spots of apricot colored shame.  "ORANGE!" he shouted again, agitation and defiance growing in his voice.  The skin about his throat puffed.  He looked at the children for understanding and they instinctively shied away.  The man became desperate, reaching out a hand of appeal towards them, shrieking, " _ORANGE_!!"  
  
The grandmother thwacked him on the head and he subsided. Then she turned a baleful eye to the assembled children.    
  
"Once," she cautioned them.  "Once."  
  
"Permanently," The Namer agreed.  "Unequivocally."    
  
"Choose!" The Regent's voice boomed though the amphitheater.  "Do choose true."  She pointed at him, the first child in line, "You!"  
  
In the dark antechamber he had been nervous. Now an odd calm descended.  He had considered this moment for many months.  Ruminating on thousands of sounds in his mind, testing them for their versatility and flavor.  He was ready.  Certain.  He ascended to the dais.  A respectful bow of the head to the elders. Then he turned to address the assembled.    
  
"Saluta _tion_!" his voice, when he spoke his first word, rang clear, with a cavalier accent of confidence on the final syllable.  "Introduction…."  He paused for the sake of anticipation, then licked his eye once and proclaimed,"Sebastian."    
  
Thus introduced, he decided to declare his intentions.  Whirling his tail in a circle to include the entire amphitheater, he said, "Representation. Nation.  Exploration."  His coloring changed to indicate the negative.  "Affectation," he chided those that might think he was bluffing.  Once more back to the colors of sincerity, "Determination!  Elation!  Anticipation!"  His heart was beating wildly in his chest.  He couldn't breathe and began gasping for air.  Colors of a hue too subtle for any but his own people to read fluxed and rippled across his skin.  He felt clammy.  Tiny spasms shivered through his muscles.  What was happening to him?  
  
His calm broke.   Fear crowded in and his mouth went dry.  Did they think his oration an obfuscation?  Placation?  Too much…ambition?  Afflicted by…pretension?  Already cognition…concentration. His words…fixation.  No…fluctuation.  Contraction to intention.      
  
Hesitation.  Humiliation?  Rejection?  Ruination?  
  
He cleared his throat and looked wide-eyed to the assembly, nerves all but overwhelming him as the change spread through his thoughts and body.  His joints shook.  For a moment he was unsure if he could remain standing.  His confidence gone, his voice cracked as he asked the crowd, "Celebration?"    
  
The thunder and whistle response from the assembly was deafening.  
  
The Namer nudged him, "Beautifully," she told him.    
  
"Orange," said the morose man to the side, tinged in the deepest colors of envy.  "Orange."

**Author's Note:**

> Grandmother Munce had such high hopes that her descendants would make better choices than her, but no, both Purple and Orange were incredible disappointments.


End file.
